Don't You Want To Be the One?
by jabbrjays
Summary: 10 years after BD. "He was kind, and caring, and when she got the flu he had held back her hair when she felt like puking and made her chicken soup from recipes that he found online. Sometimes when her parents had to work late, he would come over and they would make boxes of pasta and bowls of sauce and have the packs over for a late-night party."


The end began on a humid Friday in late September. It was warm, unseasonably so. Although the windows of the Young house were opened, staying inside for too long still felt like climbing into an oven. The heat was omnipresent and gave the illusion of pressure. It was almost hard to think, because it felt like the air was baking your brain.

Claire Young, twelve, was sitting in the kitchen area of her home with a mug full of ice cubes by her side and her math homework spread out on the table in front of her. She was staring so hard at her worksheets that she was nearly cross-eyed, and the fingers of her right hand were drumming hard on the wood of the table. Quil had offered to help, earlier, but that was tantamount to cheating, so she had told him to get out. He had gone, albeit sadly and with the worst case of puppy-dog eyes that a grown man could have. But he had gone, and now she was left alone with pages and pages of pre-algebra to drown herself in.

The knock on the door, although soft, might as well have been a shotgun blast. Her head snapped up and her legs jerked out, and she fell from her chair to the floor, banging her butt on the ground and nearly knocking over her mug of ice cubes.

"Dammit," she mumbled under her breath as she walked to the front door, but the scowl on her face was replaced with a grin as she saw who was standing outside. "Aunt Leah!" She threw herself at the woman, knocking her back a step and hugging her tight.

Leah swung Claire around a few times before putting her down. "Hey, Beanpole. How's tricks?" She smiled, but it didn't quite reach her eyes.

"Oh my God," Claire said. "Everything's great! I'm doing good in school and last year I only got the flu for a week when everybody else was down for about two and sniffling for three more, and I've made friends with this squirrel that I give half my sandwiches to. How's college?"

"College is good," Leah said. "I'm not doing as much as I'd like, because of pack duties, but it's not that bad—if I'm on the rez a lot then I get to see my favorite niece. Would you mind if I came inside?"

"Sure," Claire said, and held the door open. "Can I get you anything? Ice water? A sandwich? Um, I have some Jolly Ranchers in my bag if you want, but they've been in there since school started…"

Leah smiled, this time more genuinely. "No, it's alright. I did bring _you _something, though." She reached into her bag and pulled out two cans of Arizona sweet tea, and Claire's eyes went wide.

"Oh my God, really? Thanks! Quil never lets me drink this, he says it has too much sugar and that I'm already too hyper… are you sure he won't be mad?"

What could have been a smile twisted Leah's mouth for a half-second. "Positive," she said, and handed Claire a bottle. "Drink up."

The preteen girl didn't need to be told twice, and she and Leah settled down on the worn sofa in the main room, sipping their tea. When they were about halfway through, Leah spoke.

"Claire, do you know what 'imprinting' is?" She pronounced the word carefully, like it was a grenade with a loose pin.

Claire nodded. "It's the reason Quil's my big brother, right?"

Leah exhaled slowly. "Not quite. Hmmm. Imprinting is… more complicated than that. It's like Emily and Sam – he saw her and decided that he was going to marry her. Or like Jared and Kim – they're getting married in the spring on Kim's twenty-third birthday." She took a deep breath in, blew it out. "Do you remember Jacob? Jacob Black?"

"The one who split the packs?" Claire asked. "I know Mr. Black, but not Jacob."

Leah nodded, her jaw tight. "The Cullens – you've heard about them. Leeches that moved out when you were about four. They had a half-vampire in their family, and Jacob imprinted on it. And the imprint makes you need to stick around, so when they left, he did too. The thing's about nine now, but it looks full-grown. Jacob married it a while back."

"I don't understand," Claire said.

"It's about imprinting, Claire," Leah said. "Imprinting is always about one thing and one thing only – sex. When you get old enough, Quil will expect you to have sex with him. The packs will expect you to have sex with him. The tribe will expect you to have sex with him. The half-leech – Jacob imprinted on it the day it was born, and they're probably having sex right now."

It felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room, and even though the temperature was almost eighty degrees Claire could feel gooseflesh beginning to form on her skin. Her and _Quil_? But… he was old! He was at least twenty-five, and by the time she was old enough to date he'd be even older. Not only that, he was _Quil_. He had patched up her scraped knees and helped her braid her hair for as long as she could remember, and he would want her to – to –

"You're joking, right?" Claire asked, only slightly aware of the fact that her voice was shrill. Something was ringing in her ears. "No way would the entire _tribe _want me to do that. That's private! It's not their business! It's like if Mr. Black wanted to tell my parents to… you know…"

"Exactly," Leah said, her eyes steely. She clenched her fist and crumpled the can in her hand. "It is wrong, it's invasive, and if you reject him… Well, your Aunt Emily told Sam no, and he got so mad that he mauled her. You've seen the scars." She blinked, and gazed down at Claire, who by now was trembling. "Claire, you're my niece or good as and I love you. And when Quil told us all about his imprint ten years ago… I wanted to rip his throat out with my teeth. But he said it wasn't like I was thinking, and that he didn't think of you 'in that way'. I realize now that he forgot a word. He didn't think of you 'in that way' _yet_. But soon he will."

Claire balled her hand into a fist. The world was spinning out of control, and there was nothing more that she wanted than to scream and run away, to go down to the beach and swim so far out that the ocean washed away her problems. But she couldn't do that, so she forced herself to breathe normally until the ringing in her ears went away. "How soon?" she asked, her voice as steady as she could make it.

Leah frowned. "Well. You're twelve, and he was sixteen – is sixteen, we can't age because of that goddamn Alpha order, so I'd say a minimum of four years. But he appears to be in his mid- to late-twenties, so you could probably hold him off for another ten. Unless…"

"Unless?"

"Quil's on patrol now," Leah said, speaking quickly. "I rented a car and parked it in Forks. We go there, drive off – I know of a few guys who do fake IDs. We get you out of here, Claire, and we don't come back."

It was a good idea. If they went by car, there wouldn't be the risk of the pack mind picking up on Aunt Leah's thoughts. And werewolves could run fast, but they'd have a head start and there wouldn't be much the packs could do in the way of tracking a car. In the words of the used detective novels that Claire would buy at library sales, it was the perfect crime. But…

Claire shook her head. "I don't want to leave La Push," she said, sounding calmer than she felt. "I have friends here, and school, and Mom and Dad would get upset. And running away won't solve this – we'll just run and run and run, and end up with no money and a threat always hanging over our heads."

"That's pretty deep for a twelve-year-old," Leah kidded, but she didn't smile. "Claire, listen…"

"Earlier today, I told Quil to get out because he was trying to help me cheat on my math homework, and he left. But you say that werewolves can't leave their imprints?"

Leah shrugged. "He's still on the rez. Werewolves can do things for their imprints without… damaging the imprint itself."

"So he can leave me alone for a few hours, maybe even a day or a week, but he can't leave me alone for good."

Leah nodded, grim. "It's ugly, Claire, and I'm real sorry you got mixed up in this. I had wanted to wait to tell you, but… if I thought about it for too long, Quil'd pick up on it."

"No," Claire said, realizing what she had to do. "It's okay. But can you do me a favor? Give me a week to think things over – just get out of the area so the pack mind can't pick up on you. Mom has a coupon for a free day at this spa in Seattle, and I don't think that anybody would mind you taking the week off." She took in a deep breath. "Just drive down to Seattle, stay there for a week, watch movies… and then come back."

"Sure," Leah said, and then she pulled Claire into a hug before standing and heading to the door. "Claire, whatever you do… take care of yourself."

She was gone before Claire could give her the coupon, and before either of them could say goodbye. Claire was left behind, and she pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them to stop herself from shivering. She stayed like that for a while, as the sky behind the clouds darkened and rain began to fall, slowly draining the humidity from the atmosphere. At about eight, well before either of her parents would be back from work, she stood and walked outside to stand in the rain. It was cool on her skin and if she lifted her face up to it, it stopped her from noticing the hot tears welling up in her eyes.

After a while she headed back inside, showered, and packed up her books. It was hard to focus on any one thing, and more than once a piece of paper would slip out of her hands and land on the floor. She skipped dinner for exactly that reason – she didn't trust herself to not burn anything, and besides, she didn't have much of an appetite anyway.

When her parents came home from their second jobs, they found her sitting on the couch, gazing off into nothing in particular. Her mom sent her off to bed, and she laid there, staring into the dark corners of her room.

The problem was that Quil was her friend, and he might as well have been her family. He really was. He was kind, and caring, and when she got the flu he had held back her hair when she felt like puking and made her chicken soup from recipes that he found online. Sometimes when her parents had to work late, he would come over and they would make boxes of pasta and bowls of sauce and have the packs over for a late-night party. He had taught her how to make chocolate-chip cookies and how to do the hurdles. When she had been in drama club in fourth grade, he helped her with her monologues. When she was a little kid, she could throw rocks at him and he wouldn't complain, wouldn't even flinch. He was like a younger dad that didn't have to work late.

Except her dad wouldn't want to have sex with her.

Eventually she fell asleep, tossing fitfully throughout the night. She didn't dream.

She woke up late the next morning, and pulled on a tank top, worn Converses, and a fresh pair of shorts. The shorts had been jeans back in May, but her growth spurt had rendered them useless as long pants and so she had been forced to take scissors to them. She headed for the door, her skinny shoulders set. The only word she spoke was a quick "'bye" to her mom, who was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and reading the newspaper.

The rain of last night had cleared away most of the humidity, but none of the heat, and it felt like her feet were baking in their sneakers as she headed for Quil's house.

He was, fortunately enough, home alone, sitting on the couch and flipping through TV channels. When he saw her standing in the doorway, his face lit up and he bounded over to her, crossing the space between them in just one step. "Hey, Claire-bear!" He pulled her into a hug tight enough to knock the air out of her lungs, and she didn't protest.

"Hey, Uncle Quil," she said, and then realized that she didn't have the energy for pleasantries. "Let's go to the beach."

"Okay," Quil said, and pulled on his sneakers. They were fairly well-worn – he didn't grow, and she'd never seen him explode into a wolf because of a lost temper. That was useful.

They headed down to the beach, his arm around her shoulders and her lips pressed firmly together. Once or twice he would ask her how she was doing, but she couldn't find the words to answer him, so he let it drop.

The beach was about as busy as it ever was in the morning – that was to say, not very. Towards the evening it would start filling up, and at night the older kids would have parties, but in the morning the only people on it were the health fanatics who believed that regular ocean bathing extended the lifespan, the occasional amnesiac teenager who had been there since the previous night, and the old people with nothing better to do. But there was a spot that was rarely visited – off to the far end, near the rocks. It was there that Claire headed, unerringly, ignoring Quil's protests. She clambered up the rocks and sat down on a rounder one, patting the space next to her as an invitation.

Quil took it. They sat and watched the waves crash against the rocks. Far off on the horizon, the light gray of the sky met the dark grey of the sea.

After a while, Claire realized that tears were streaming down her face. She sniffled and wiped them away before speaking. "Quil," she said, "I want you to do something for me."

"Anything you want, Claire-bear," Quil said soppily. That almost set off another crying jag, but Claire steeled herself.

"You're going to go into the water," she said. "And you're going to swim as far down as you can. And you're going to stay there for fifteen minutes."

Quil's eyes went wide. "Claire, what – "

"It's _what I want_," Claire said firmly. "If you loved me, you'd do what I want. Now take your sneakers off and get to it."

He did, and the look on his face before he went under would stay with her for the rest of her life. It was resignation, but there was something in his eyes that was either fear or hate.

Claire sat on the rocks and watched the water, counting off the minutes in her head. One mississippi through sixty mississippi, fifteen times. Only when she was sure that he wasn't coming up did she push herself up off of the rock that she was sitting on and begin to head back to the beach, readying herself for the tears that would come.

Quil's sneakers sat abandoned by the rocks.

* * *

Believe it or not, the idea for this fic has been bouncing around for a while. It might even be about two years old by now, but I'm not sure.

Imprinting is creepy as hell, and Claire/Quil is the worst instance of it. The Illustrated Guide justifies Renesmee/Jacob by saying that the Death Baby has the mind of an adult when born, so she's a mature adult in a child's body waiting for physical growth before she engages in a sexual relationship. Claire doesn't have that. Claire has a world that wants her to engage in sexual activity with a man fourteen years older than her.

Title taken from _Bang Bang Bang Bang _by Soho Dolls.


End file.
